Monday, November 3rd, 2008
Voting Smarterer
Just hours before Election Day and the LA Times wants to spoil the party by asking an ominous question: “How Smart is the American Voter?”
Ahem, the answer is, well….not smart. The better question is really, “how not smart?”
Playing nice, the author, Bartels, calls voters “predictably irrational.” We take impressions and build platforms from them. And when studies find large blocs of voters all misinformed about the same piece of information, it shows we are easily manipulated by political communication.
The article is a great read, citing research from the 50’s to the present election. It is not until we can call our collective irrationality by its name that we can begin to fix it.
